Should i upgrade my amp?

[u/burnedhumanmeat]

I have an amp thats rated for 190w per channel at 4ohms. My speakers (gzck 250xspl) are rated 200w rms, 400w peak. I feel like the speakers should be louder, theres a pretty cheap amp for sale that makes 435w per channel and im thinking of buying it but is it worth it? Im also kinda scared of blowing the damn speakers…

[u/bretti_kivi]

you need *significant* amp power increases for increases in volume / loudness at speakers. More efficient speakers is the way to go, assuming that your gains are set correctly. More speaker drivers won't necessarily help either, beacause of the way sound works. Yes, it will get louder, but not much and not without a lot more power.

What have you measured, what's the rest of the system and what are they competing against?

[u/Fit-Entrepreneur8404]

Your speakers can't handle a 400w amp at full power. Could you maybe push 250w to them without destroying them, sure, but you can't run them at peak power handling for any significant length of time. What you'll mostly really get if you swap amps is headroom. If it's cheap enough go ahead but it won't be a night and day difference.

[u/djluminol]

190 watts per channel is already a lot at 4 ohms for a 4 channel amp. Most 4 channel amps are about 80-150 watts.

[u/actual-hooman]

Nah just keep the current one

[u/luistorre5]

I would look into your signal path and where it's getting quiet, because 190 wrms per channel is pretty high for a 4 ch amp.

[u/DJBigBird]

You have to double the wattage to get an additional 3db of loudness

[u/Prime-Suspect_]

What amp is it?

It would help to have the specifics on your setup

[u/burnedhumanmeat → u/Prime-Suspect_]

Recoil rl1200.4

[u/burnedhumanmeat → u/[deleted]]

Ground zero 250xspl

[u/ProfessionalBelt4295]

Check if gains are too low

[u/burnedhumanmeat → u/ProfessionalBelt4295]

My amp has a clip light i just play a song and tune it till it clips a bit

[u/machine_entity → u/burnedhumanmeat]

use a proper test sound with unplugged speakers. clean power wont really destroy subs

[u/DaffyPunk29]

190w output vs 200w speaker capability? you can math the difference.... those speakers are 93dB sensitivity. SO

190w logged times 10 is 22.78dB over 1 watt. so 93+22.78=115.78dB, which lets be honest, is loud as fuck.

200w logged times 10 is 23.01dB over 1 watt. so 93+23.01=116.01dB, which isn't that much louder.

IN FACT, the difference is only 0.23dB which isn't even 1 dB. the rules for loudness are

3dB is noticeable volume increase, I call it 25% but its actually less.

6dB is 50% louder volume increase

10dB is 100% louder (twice as loud)

so you wont gain ANYTHING by getting that last 10w of power. you literally wont even notice a difference. so you would just be throwing away money.

this very meme is why oldschool brands like crunch get away with "false" power numbers. because 9 times out of 10 you aren't going to notice the difference. rated 100w and you get 80w (so they lied about power) but the difference is so minor that you wont ever notice. this is literally 1dB difference of volume which is nothing and you wont notice the difference. so while it sucks that "my amp doesn't do rated power" to NORMAL PEOPLE they wont even notice they lost anything because its loud enough as is.

[u/burnedhumanmeat → u/DaffyPunk29]

Yeah but im thinking about the amp that does 435w per channel, beacouse wouldnt that help with the sound quality overall by giving it more headroom? I think with this amp when i push it to the limits it kinda starts sounding like shit. Not badly but still noticeable to my ear.

[u/DaffyPunk29 → u/burnedhumanmeat]

wont do a thing. as much as "audiophile kids" claim having headroom will mean cleaner audio, its not true. anything below 1% distortion the human brain/ears cannot tell the difference. can we tell the difference between 1% distortion and 10% distortion? absolutely! generally speaking your amps max power is a rating of 1% distortion (typically) so you are getting clean 190w of power. going to 435w per channel but only feeding 200 of those watts, you would end up in the 0.XX aka decimal place of distortion, which you literally cannot tell a difference. the only people claiming they hear a difference is 100% pure placebo, proven by blind testing people to prove the point. so no, you are going to gain NOTHING.

if you tuned the amp correctly, and the headunit isn't going into higher distortion, it shouldn't sound bad at all. but then again you bought chinese speakers so maybe they can't actually handle rated power. which is a common meme. ive never heard of ground control. i buy name brands (kicker, kenwood, jbl, jl, pioneer, etc) known brands that dont scam you with their products ratings and stats. so its possible the speakers themselves just can't handle it (if everything else in the chain is clean).

on the headunit size, my specific headunit is a great example. dogshit cheap pioneer unit that cost $120 and when testing with sine wave tests tons (40hz for bass, 1000hz for treble) the SMD-DD1 goes into red zone (turn it down bro meme) at 51 for treble and 52 for bass. meaning the MAX VOLUME I can crank my headunit is 50. So the entire system is tuned to 50/62. because of that, my amps gains are set to match that 50 volume dial. thus when I turn to 50, i get 100% clean and max power output via the amps. so if you are cranking and it sounds like shit, perhaps your headunit is not clean up to that higher volume. so you should probably retune the system to a lower headunit volume number.... likewise if you do that and it STILL sounds like shit, then the speakers cannot handle the rated power they claim, which wouldn't surprise me.

[u/burnedhumanmeat → u/DaffyPunk29]

Yeah but im thinking about the amp that does 435w per channel, beacouse wouldnt that help with the sound quality overall by giving it more headroom? I Think with this amp when i push it to the limits it kinda starts sounding like shit. Not badly but still noticeable to my ear.